Favorite Quotes
“But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.” - Alan Watts
“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi
”Imagine people thinking that their enemy can do them more damage than their own enmity that they harbor against him.” -Saint Augustine
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” - Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
”It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Teddy Roosevelt
“Opportunity has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, often disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat which is why so many fail to recognize opportunity.” ― Napolean Hill
”It is better to be on the certain though slow course of gradual unfoldment of freedom than to take the troubled and dangerous path of revolution whether peaceful or violent.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi
”The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” -Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha
“Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible, be daily before your eyes, but death chiefly; and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.” - Epictetus
“No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves.” - Rudyard Kipling
”To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” - Alan Watts
”Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” - Carl Jung
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ― Charles Bukowski
”If people bring so much courage to the world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
”To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves … and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” - John Holt
”Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.” - Ayn Rand
”No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may.” - Dhammapada
”It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.” - Buddha
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Robin Sharma
Colombian soldiers in Rionegro Antioquia, 2001
”¿Qué es un envidioso? Un ingrato que detesta la luz que le alumbra y le calienta.” - Victor Hugo
”En cuanto nace la virtud, nace contra ella la envidia, y antes perderá el cuerpo su sombra que la virtud su envidia.” - Leonardo Da Vinci
”La envidia, el más mezquino de los vicios, se arrastra por el suelo como una serpiente.” - Ovidio
”Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.” - Alan Watts
”Everything you can imagine is real.” - Pablo Picasso
”Man need only divert his attention from searching for the solution to external questions and pose the one, true inner question of how he should lead his life, and all the external questions will be resolved in the best possible way.” – Leo Tolstoy
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” - Chinese Proverb
“I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?” - Epictetus
”Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.” - Margaret Mead
“No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” - Epictetus
”In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.” - Anatole France
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.” - Horace Walpole
“The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma, it is a process.” - Thich Nhat Hahn
”Let our first act every morning be to make the following resolve: I shall not fear anyone. I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. In resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi
“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.” - Etienne de la Boetie
”If I could summarize nonviolence in one word, it would be: Patience.” - Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
”The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.” - Syrus
”To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment of my values in another person. Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.” - Nathaniel Branden
“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door… Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?” - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
”You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
”I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” - Mahatma Gandhi
”The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.” - Morihei Ueshiba
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” -Herman Melville
”Violence just hurts those who are already hurt… instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.” - César Chávez
“Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.” - Lao Tzu
”We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ - Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” 1963
”Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” - Wayne Dyer
”It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” - Voltaire
”The divine is not something high above us. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside us.” - Morihei Ueshiba
”People don’t want more information about their problems; they want solutions to their problems.” - Timothy Ferriss
”The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his [her] conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” - William James
”Nonviolence really rests on the reservoir that you have to create in yourself of patience, not of being patient with the problems, but being patient with yourself to do the hard work.” - César Chávez
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” - Goethe
“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.” - Alan Watts
”A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu
”Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” - Morihei Ueshiba
”If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.” - Robert LeFevre
”Qué fuerza y qué paz adquiere una persona que cambia la culpa por la responsabilidad, el miedo por la confianza, la pasividad por la lucha.” - Ldo. Juan Carlos Medina
”It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” - Napolean Hill
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” - Plato
“If you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path.” - Buddha
”You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” - Malcolm X
”Mindfulness is paying attention, on purpose, from moment to moment, with non-judging awareness.” - Jon Kabat-Zinn
”The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.” - Bertrand Russell
“Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.” –Albert Einstein
”When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.” - Wayne Dyer
”A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” - William James
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” - Ernest Hemingway
”By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.” - Mikhail Bakunin
“He who wants to take over the country and remake it under his own reforming plans will fail. `Mankind’ is an abstract concept that cannot be remade after one’s own ideas … [T]he Sage never tries to take over things and reform man, but is instead content to reform himself — letting others follow his example, but never forcing them.” -Lao Tzu
”All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.” - James Fenimore Cooper
”If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm X
”When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” - Amelia Earheart
”Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom, go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.” - Frank Zappa
”Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” - Frederick Douglass
”We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” ~Lloyd Alexander
”Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice” - Bertrand Russell
”It is we [the workers] who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. […] That world is growing in this minute.” - Buenaventura Durruti
”The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this - that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.” - Lysander Spooner
”Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men and women are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society.” - Aung San Suu Kyi
”I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; – but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.” - William Lloyd Garrison
”Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” - George Orwell
”The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.” - Mohandas Gandhi
”Man is free at the instant he wants to be.” - Voltaire
”We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.” - Howard Zinn
”That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.” - Henry David Thoreau
”A government that is ruthless about what it does to other people is also ruthless in what it does to our own people.” - Howard Zinn
”History is important. If you don’t know history it’s as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything. And you have no way of checking up on it.” - Howard Zinn
”There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.” - Ayn Rand
”Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience & through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde
”I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences of too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” - Thomas Jefferson
”There is no conflict between liberty and safety. We will have both or neither.” - Ramsey Clark
”Honest people are never touchy about the matter of being trusted.” - Ayn Rand
”Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” - Mohandas Gandhi
”All work is an act of philosophy.” - Ayn Rand
”One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.” - Victor Hugo
”I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” - Ralph Nader
”It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.” - Ayn Rand
”Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” - Isaac Asimov
”You can’t break a man that don’t borrow.” - Will Rogers
”They made a wasteland and called it peace.” - Tacitus
”I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” - Henry David Thoreau
”I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.” - William James
”The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” - Rudyard Kipling
”Do the things you really want to do if you possibly can. Don’t wait for circumstances to be exactly right. You’ll find that they never are.” - Rudyard Kipling
”Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up.” — Cyprian Norwid
”A character who unknowingly carries a bomb around as if it were an ordinary package is bound to work up great suspense in the audience.” - Alfred Hitchcock
”Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.” ― Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto
”Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups… So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.” ― Philip K. Dick
”To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
”Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung